Come Unto Me.

Come unto Me, when shadows darkly gather, When the sad heart is weary and distressed, Seeking for comfort from your heavenly Father, Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.

This sweet hymn, by Mrs. Catherine Esling, is well known to many thousands of mourners, as also is its equally sweet tune of "Henley," by Lowell Mason. Melody and words melt together like harp and flute.

Large are the mansions in thy Father's dwelling, Glad are the homes that sorrows never dim, Sweet are the harps in holy music swelling. Soft are the tones that raise the heavenly hymn.

Mrs. Catherine Harbison Waterman Esling was born in Philadelphia, Apr. 12, 1812. A writer for many years under her maiden name, Waterman, she married, in 1840, Capt. George Esling, of the Merchant Marine, and lived in Rio Janeiro till her widowhood, in 1844.

JOHN WESLEY'S HYMN.

How happy is the pilgrim's lot, How free from every anxious thought.

These are the opening lines of "John Wesley's Hymn," so called because his other hymns are mostly translations, and because of all his own it is the one commonly quoted and sung.

John Wesley, the second son in the famous Epworth family of ministers, was a man who knew how to endure "hardness as a good soldier of Christ." He was born June 27, 1703, and studied at Charterhouse, London, and at Christ Church, Oxford, becoming a Fellow of Lincoln College. After taking holy orders he went as a missionary to Georgia, U.S., in 1735, and on his return began his remarkable work in England, preaching a more spiritual type of religion, and awakening the whole kingdom with his revival fervor and his brother's kindling songs. The following paragraph from his itinerant life, gathered probably from a page of his own journals, gives a glimpse of what the founder of the great Methodist denomination did and suffered while carrying his Evangelical message from place to place.

On February 17, 1746, when days were short and weather far from favorable, he set out on horseback from Bristol to Newcastle, a distance between three and four hundred miles. The journey occupied ten days. Brooks were swollen, and in some places the roads were impassable, obliging the itinerant to go round through the fields. At Aldrige Heath, in Staffordshire, the rain turned to snow, which the northerly wind drove against him, and by which he was soon crusted over from head to foot. At Leeds the mob followed him, and pelted him with whatever came to hand. He arrived at Newcastle, February 26, "free from every anxious thought," and "every worldly fear."

How lightly he regarded hardship and molestation appears from his verses--

Whatever molests or troubles life, When past, as nothing we esteem, And pain, like pleasure, is a dream.

And that he actually enjoys the heroic freedom of a rough-rider missionary life is hinted in his hymn--

Confined to neither court nor cell, His soul disdains on earth to dwell, He only sojourns here.

God evidently built John Wesley fire-proof and water-proof with a view to precisely what he was to undertake and accomplish. His frame was vigorous, and his spirit unconquerable. Besides all this he had the divine gift of a religious faith that could move mountains and a confidence in his mission that became a second nature. No wonder he could suffer, and last. The brave young man at thirty was the brave old man at nearly ninety. He died in London, March 2, 1791.

Blest with the scorn of finite good, My soul is lightened of its load And seeks the things above.

There is my house and portion fair; My treasure and my heart are there, And my abiding home.

For me my elder brethren stay, And angels beckon me away. And Jesus bids me come.